Ant and Dec - Mirror TV Ant and Dec The cheeky Geordie chappies have been best friends since they first appeared on screen together in children's series Byker Grove. After a pop hit with Let's Get Ready To Rumble as PJ and Duncan, they went on to become the undisputed kings of Saturday night TV on shows like I'm A Celebrity, Britain's Got Talent and Saturday Night Takeaway Ant and Dec in their first ever separate interviews | Radio Times Twitter Ant and Dec in their first ever separate interviews The duo are known for being inseparable - both on screen and off - so what happened when Radio Times talked to them individually? Comments Interviews by Simon Hattenstone 7:00 AM, 23 February 2013 Anthony McPartlin and Declan Donnelly, aka Ant and Dec, are Britain’s most successful double act. While the history of popular entertainment is rife with double acts who couldn’t stand each other off stage, Ant and Dec are the closest of pals. For the past 20 years, they’ve lived in the same flat or next door to each other. Even now, they live in the same road.

Both are likeable, warm, working-class, smarter and more ambitious than you might imagine. They started out together 23 years ago as 14-year-olds on the BBC children’s TV series Byker Grove. Since then, they’ve reinvented themselves, first as pop stars PJ & Duncan, then as TV presenters. Now they’re responsible for three of the UK’s highest-profile shows: I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here!, Britain’s Got Talent and Saturday Night Takeaway, which returns to ITV this week after a four-year absence. They’ve won the National Television Award for Best Entertainment Presenter for 12 years running. Ant and Dec are a true phenomenon. Not least because so many people still can’t tell them apart. Often the two halves of a comedy double act are distinguishable by exaggerated physical features – let’s face it, few of us would confuse Morecambe with Wise or Laurel with Hardy. By contrast, Ant and Dec play on their similarities. In Richard Curtis’s romantic comedy Love Actually, they appear as themselves and are repeatedly referred to individually as “Ant or Dec”.

This is partly because they do look vaguely similar (dark hair, boyish, smiley, short) but mainly because they fit together seamlessly as a pair. They don’t have delineated roles; neither is the funny or straight man. They’re simply two halves of a brilliantly branded, understated whole. But there are differences. Here for Radio Times, they’ve agreed to be interviewed separately about their relationship for the first time. Talking to them individually was fascinating. There are those moments when they had different recollections of their past (the football match they first went to together, and how they got on with each other initially) and there were times when different characteristics emerged. Dec is the more thoughtful and emotional in private. But more than anything, what became apparent is the profound depth of their friendship. At one point in our conversation Dec talked about how they pledged to be friends for ever when they thought their career was over as teenagers. He began to weep. Ant on Dec We got on as soon as we met. We were both 14. We lived very close to each other in Newcastle. Our schools were just down the road from one another, so we had everything in common – music, girls, movies and football.

The first Christmas we knew each other, I sent him a Flintstones card saying, “Have a yabba dabba do Christmas.”. And I wrote “D’you fancy coming to the Grimsby game on Boxing Day?” When our characters in Byker Grove, PJ and Duncan, shared a storyline, we became really close. We’d go out to the pictures, stay at each other’s houses, have parties when family members were away. I remember my mam going away to Turkey with my younger sisters and that was a big Byker Grove party. All the girls got dolled up, all the boys came round, there was a lot of Alcopops on the go. At 18, we were written out of the series. There had been talk of a spin-off series with me and Dec, but the executive producer called us in to say the BBC had poo-pooed the idea. I was devastated. We walked down this big staircase very glum, then the producer popped his head back round and said, “I’ve just had this record company on the phone from London, ” and we thought , “Whatever!” But we did sign the contract on my 19th birthday and then moved to London.

We never really said goodbye to our parents. We were supposed to be going for three weeks, but we just didn’t come back. We shared two flats in London, the first in Fulham, which was a pigsty. The record company paid for it and everything we couldn’t do back home, we did there. Takeaways every night. We’d come in, throw our coats down, get a beer out of the fridge: it was really men behaving badly – or boys behaving badly. We then bought homes next to each other, and in 2006 I got married and Dec bought a house three doors down the road from my new marital home. He’s basically a stalker, but he’s very good at his job so I’ll keep him on. There’s a rumour that we do every thing together and I’m holding off having kids till Dec finds himself Mrs Right. I love that idea, but I’m afraid it’s not true. Lisa and I would love to have kids. We’re trying. It’s tougher than you think when you get a bit older. We’re insured against the other dying. It’s not for tens of millions but a fair chunk.

If he does ever die in unfortunate circumstances, I’m going to be the first person the police come to because I’ve got a motive. Maybe when we’re 50 and not getting paid as we used to, I’ll knock him off. The longest that we’ve been apart is a month. It was two years ago and we'd been incredibly busy throughout the year so we decided to take August off. I took my family away to a villa in Portugal and Dec went away with his family. We did text quite a lot, though, because August is a big football transfer time. The biggest argument we’ve had was over the Who Wants to Be a Millionaire board game about ten years ago. I was Tarrant and the question was “Who wrote this novel?” and they give you four crime authors, Ruth Rendell, Agatha Christie, another, and another. He took a 50–50 and said, “Well, it’s either that one or that one,” so I took out the two he didn’t know and left the two he’d said it was either. He swore a lot. Let’s be honest, he went mental, packed up the game and went home. But we’ve never come close to splitting up.

People find it hard to believe, but we’re friends first and foremost. Among double acts, Morecambe and Wise are number one, definitely. But there’s a load of influences. Vic and Bob second – they were a huge influence when I was growing up and, being from the North East, I really loved them. For a double act to work, you shouldn’t have egos. You shouldn’t worry who gets the funny line, just that you’re being funny as a double act. With us, it flips all the time. There’s no real straight man or funny man. Dec’s worst habit is that he’s always late. He fannies around. It’s not like he’s rushing from meeting to meeting, cos I’m in exactly the same meetings, so I don’t know what it is that always makes him 15 minutes later than he should be. We’ve talked a lot about the future this year. We love I’m a Celebrity, Britain’s Got Talent, Saturday Night Takeway, but they’re all live shows. The difference between doing a live show and a sitcom is that a sitcom can live on.

If you do it well, it can leave a legacy, whereas most of our live work never gets repeated because it’s final, it’s done, you start again. So we’re developing a silent comedy idea at the moment. It will take a couple of years and we might never get there, but it’s the way we’d like to go. We probably will try our luck in America again. It never really worked because the network didn’t get behind us; it would need to be the right show. I think we’ve got one big push left in us, and we’d have to make sure it’s worth it. If it happens, it happens, but because everything is going so well over here, we’re not dying to break America. Over the years Dec and I have got closer. Unfortunately, it tends to be because of bad things, like when Dec’s dad passed away a couple of years ago. At times like that, any kind of business goes out of the window and you just realise our friendship comes first. Dec on Ant We didn’t get on instantly. I was in the first series of Byker Grove and Ant was in the second. So there was a little bit of “Who are these new kids?” when he joined.

I remember Ant coming in and sitting in the corner by himself, and I thought he looked really miserable. Then about two months later, the new set of scripts came out and our characters became friends. That’s when we started talking. The first meaningful friendship moment we had was when Ant sent me a Fred Flintstone Christmas card and it said, ‘To Dec from Ant, have a yabba dabba do Christmas.” At the bottom it said, “PS fancy going to the Swindon game on Boxing Day?” We met at Gray’s monument in the middle of Newcastle at 2pm, got a Gregg’s pasty, walked up to the Gallagher end, and that was the start of our bromance. From then on, we’d go and stay at each other’s houses, play football, go to the pictures every week. Ant and Dec seemed a natural name for us – it was just how people referred to us, cos we were always together. I’ve never resented the fact that his name comes first. It’s only relatively recently, the last ten years, we’ve stood with Ant on the left and me on the right. They call it the 180-degree rule.

A few years ago somebody did a survey and found out that 70 per cent of the British public don’t know which one’s which. I’m used to being confused for someone else. l’ve got three brothers and three sisters, and I grew up being called Eamonn-Martin-Dermott-Declan because I was the youngest of the boys and Mum would go through all their names first before she got to mine. I’m not sure how much Ant and I are insured against each other. I’ve heard it’s a couple of million. However much it is, it would never be compensation for losing your best mate. I’ve never wanted to work alone since we started together. All the ideas we have are for the pair of us. There might come a time when we want to do something individually, but I think it’s a long way off. We’ve only really had two arguments; one was over the Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? board game and the other was when we were drunk in a lift in Spain. I can’t even remember what it was about, we were so drunk. I knocked his cap off and he punched me in the chest. He would win in a fight.

Soon after Ant got married and moved into his home with Lisa, I found a plot of land I fancied developing on their road. First of all I thought they’re going to build a family and I didn’t want to feel I was some sort of cling-on, some limpet. So I told Ant – he was like whoopee! But he said, “You’ve got to speak to Lisa.” I asked if he’d do it and he went, “No no no no, you’ve got to do it, I’ll come with you.” We both stood there like naughty schoolboys and she went, “What? What’s happened?” Ant went, “Dec’s got something to tell you.” She just started laughing and went, “Bloody hell, typical.” She said, “People are going to think this is really weird,” and I’m like, “I know, I know…” People often ask why I haven’t settled down yet. Perhaps I’m incredibly fussy. The last long-term relationship was a couple of years back with [Sky Sports presenter] Georgie Thompson. But that’s not the last relationship I had. You just don’t hear about them, thankfully.

I think Ant and I were ambitious because of where we come from. Both of us are from working-class families on council estates in Newcastle. Growing up in the 80s, there weren’t many opportunities. It was tough – how it is today economically and socially is reminiscent of those days. We were so lucky that opportunity came along in the early 90s, and we didn’t let it go. That’s driven us for the last 20 years. I don’t want to go back to how things were. I think I fear that more than Ant. I still have that feeling that we’re going to get a knock on the door and somebody will say, “It wasn’t supposed to be you, it was supposed to be somebody else. It’s time to hand it all back.” If it all ended tomorrow, as long as we still had our friendship with each other, I could deal with it. When we were 17, I got my first car, a Mini Metro. We’d been told we were being written out of Byker Grove, and we had nothing.

We got in the car and drove down to the quayside in Newcastle before it was all redeveloped, and we sat with a bag of crisps and a bottle of pop, looking at the Tyne bridge, going, “God what are we going to do now?” We were both bricking it because we didn’t know what was coming next and we loved what we did. We pledged then whatever happens we’ll always remain friends. [He starts to cry.] I’m getting a bit emotional talking about it. I am more emotional than Ant. I appreciate our relationship even more since I lost my dad. We’ve both matured and realised there’s life outside work as we approach 40. You’ve got to stop and smell the roses every now and then. For a long time we were always striving for the next thing. You do take stock and value things a bit more. People often ask what the secret of our success is, and I used to put it down to just something that happened, but reflecting on it, I think it’s friendship. Ours is a career built on a friendship, not a friendship built on a career.

Biography - About - Ant & Dec Ant & Dec 1993 PJ & Duncan The fifth series of Byker Grove saw the characters PJ and Duncan form a band called Grove Matrix (snappy name!) and record a song called Tonight I'm Free. In a masterpiece of life imitating art, And and Dec received a call from Telstar Records to say that they wanted to release it as a single in real life - just as the boys were being told their characters were being written out of the show. Ant's 18th birthday saw the day the boys could legally sign their record deal with Telstar, as PJ and Duncan. Their pop career was to span four years, three albums and 14 top 20 hits - most famously the BRIT Award-nominated Let's Get Ready To Rhumble. For the first two albums, they continued to record as TV show alter-egos PJ and Duncan, before opting to go by their own names for album number three, The Cult of Ant And Dec. 1989 Byker Grove Having already been introduced to the showbiz world as a presenter on kids' TV show Why Don't You..?, Ant landed the role of PJ the DJ in children's drama, Byker Grove.

Dec had already served a year on the show playing sensible, level-headed Duncan, when Ant arrived on set. The pair bonded over their mutual love of Newcastle United and the friendship was sealed on Boxing Day 1990, when they had their first outing outside of work - heading to St James' Park to watch their beloved Newcastle draw 1-1 with Swindon Town. 1994 Gimme 5 The boys' first foray into TV presenting came on the CiTV Saturday morning show Gimme 5, where they discovered the fun that could be had getting gunged live on air! 1995 The Ant & Dec Show And and Dec began flexing their comedy muscles in CBBC sketch show, The Ant & Dec Show. There was a whiff of controversy about the show, thanks to a slot called Beat The Barber where losers in a quiz had their heads shaved. Lighten up moaners, it was funny! 1996 First BAFTA Award! The boys picked up their first two major awards this year: BAFTA for Best Children's Show and Best Sketch Comedy Show. A sign of things to come.

1998 Ant & Dec Unzipped A move to Channel 4 and a later time slot as the boys launched their early evening show Ant & Dec Unzipped (which earned them another BAFTA), but they were soon snapped up by ITV in the same year. SM:TV Live The lads were soon back in our living rooms on a Saturday morning, this time as presenters of SM:TV Live and CD:UK, alongside Cat Deeley. Over the next three years, it became the most popular kids' TV show in ITV's history and introduced the phrase Wonkey Donkey to the English language. Hurrah! 2000 Friends Like These A first taste of Saturday night prime time TV came in the shape of Friends Like These, a game show which pitted a group of female friends against a team of males in a series of challenges. A sort of Krypton-Factor-meets-The-Cube with added battle of the sexes thrown in... 2001 Slap Bang with Ant & Dec A grown up version of SM:TV Live, this Saturday evening hour of fun updated some of the favourite slots from the Saturday morning version, including Challenge Ant and 'Beers', a new version of Chums.

2002 Saturday Night Takeaway History was about to be made! The first ever episode of Saturday Night Takeaway airs on ITV to huge acclaim, changing the face of primetime weekend telly viewing forever. And just think... flash forward 12 years and you can watch it live in a bloomin' massive arena! I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here! For many celebrities, live would never be the same again after this instant ITV hit, I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here! Ant and Dec watched on with barely-concealed glee as random celebs dealt with witchety grubs, spiders, hunger pains and very public washing facilities. No wonder it's still going strong... A Tribute to The Likely Lads Going back to their North-East acting roots and in tribute to a TV classic, Ant played Terry Collier and Dec played Bob Ferris in a loveable reworking of the 1970s sitcom Whatever Happened To The Likely Lads? 2003 Love Actually The lads enjoyed a cameo in the British movie hit Love Actually, playing themselves as 'Ant Or Dec', giving them a taste for the film-making game...

2005 Ant & Dec's Gameshow Marathon Just as Likely Lads was a nod to a classiv TC sitcom, their next hit venture for ITV revived some of the most-loved game shows of the last thirty years. The Price Is Right, Bullseye and Sale of the Century were among the seven quiz shows given a modern day remix. 2006 Poker Face Ant and Dec launched a fresh and bold new quiz show on ITV, which gave contestants the chance to bluff their way to £1 million - one contestant was lucky enough to scoop the jackpot. That year the boys also took on hosting duties for the celebrity charity match Soccer Aid. Having made it in the world of TV and music (well, sort of...), the natural next step for Ant & Dec was to make a movie, and Alien Autopsy, based on a true story, was the perfect format. It told the tale of two British guys who attempt to fool the world with a video of, yes, a supposed alien autopsy. 2007 The next all-conquering format landed on British screens, uniting Ant and Dec with Simon Cowell for the first time.

The show went on to produce the careers of Susan Boyle, Paul Potts, Diversity and Stavros Flatley. Wanna Bet? Opportunity knocked across the Atlantic as Ant and Dec marked a new milestone by fronting a game show for US TV called Wanna Bet? The lads celebrated their new venture in the States by flying to Las Vegas, contracting food poisoning and spending 48 hours in their hotel bathrooms throwing up. Congratulations! 2010 Ant & Dec's Push The Button Another new venture for the boys, where once more they generously tried to give members of the general public a massive load of cash. In this show, which ran for two series, families faced off to bank £100,000. 2011 Red Or Black? The next joint venture with BGT chum Simon Cowell. This epic show saw contestants take part in various chellenges before earning the chance to answer one simple but hugely important question... red or black? Incredibly, four winning contestants in the first series went home as instant millionaires after guessing correctly.

2013 Ant and Dec: Naughty secrets of the golden boys | Daily Mail Online Ant and Dec: Naughty secrets of the golden boys Ant & Dec open up about drinking on the job and their two big rows They admit that their ideal guest would be Prince Harry A new series of Saturday Night Takeaway starts tonight on ITV comments Face to face, it's hard to tell if Ant and Dec realise the cameras have stopped rolling. They raise naughty eyebrows, finish each other's sentences, laugh at pretty much anything and mention their mums every two minutes ('you've got to be good to your mam'). It goes without saying they're sitting 'in formation' (Ant on the left, Dec on the right as you look at them) as they always appear on television so as not to muddle the audience. (For the record, Ant is taller, has amazing curvy black eyebrows and long lashes like a cow. Dec is chubbier, pinker, cheekier-looking. Both are 38, but look about 18.) 'We don't consciously do it,' says Ant.

'But somehow I'm always here and he's there.' Ant (left) and Dec (right) have won three BAFTAs and 25 National Television Awards 'It feels odd if I go on the other side,' adds Dec. 'Even if we're just at home watching telly. Or driving to work - Joe, our driver, takes us everywhere and we always sit this way round in the back. I'd never sit in Ant's seat!' And, er, what about at home in bed? 'Um, yes! I sleep on Dec's side!' says Dec. 'Do you sleep on Ant's side, Ant?' 'Yeah I do! Ha ha. So there you are!' Anthony McPartlin and Declan Donnelly are arguably the most successful entertainment presenters in the history of television. RELATED ARTICLES Share this article Share They've won three BAFTAs, 25 National Television Awards - including 13 consecutive Most Popular Entertainment Presenter Awards - and have fronted so much, from I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here! to Britain's Got Talent, SM:TV to Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway.

They even had a No.1 single last year with Let's Get Ready To Rhumble!, which they'd first recorded during their brief pop career in 1994. Last month they were awarded a special Landmark Award for 25 years in showbusiness and enjoyed tributes from Prince Charles, Kylie Minogue, Robbie Williams, Simon Cowell and Bruce Forsyth. Ant and Dec got messy with gold paint for the cover of The Daily Mail's Weekend magazine But they remain utterly unstarry. They tell silly stories about nicking cutlery from a posh Indian restaurant (Ant once filled Dec's jacket pockets with an entire table's worth, making the owner so furious he called the police), winding one another up with clingfilm on loos, wigs left on pillows to suggest they have a woman in bed with them and drinking a bit too much before trying to make each other laugh on air during I'm A Celebrity, which they've presented from Australia since 2002. 'If we're a bit sweaty and a little bit giggly, you can always tell, "Ooh, they've been on the sauce,"' says Dec.

'It's always my birthday when we're out there and the day after's a bit of a struggle,' says Ant. 'We have to get up at 1.30 in the morning to look at the overnight footage and be in the studio by 7am, so we really should be in bed by 7pm, though we have been known to push it to 9.30, or even ten.' Or perhaps skip the sleep bit completely? 'Oh no!' says Ant, appalled. 'We're professional!' 'No! We've always had at least an hour - though sometimes it's just a lie down,' says Dec. 'And we have a 20-minute car journey from our hotel to the studio, so you can get a little kip then,' laughs Ant. Their humour is brilliantly puerile, but never mean. They're hugely likeable, normal and love a drink. 'Or four. We egg each other on - if you're having another, I'm having another, ooh, we may as well get a bottle...' says Dec. Occasionally, they completely lose it on screen as they did with Princess Diana's former butler Paul Burrell when he was on I'm A Celebrity.

'He was just ridiculous, puffed-up and so funny,' says Ant. 'It was the first time we blatantly laughed in someone's face, but we couldn't stop ourselves. We really couldn't. He was preposterous.' Ant and Dec admit to having shown up on the set of I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here! slightly intoxicated Or the time they put a secret earpiece in Louis Walsh's ear and told him what to do and say as part of a sketch called 'I'm A Celebrity... Get Out Of Me Ear!' for Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway. They were filmed crying with laughter as the obliging X Factor judge pretended to phone Dannii Minogue using a banana taken from a fruit bowl at his house while an unsuspecting workman looked on bemused. 'Good old Louis. He's always available. That's the best thing about him,' says Dec. Takeaway is back this evening for its 11th series - there was a break between 2009 and 2013 following a scandal when viewers paid to take part in a phone-in competition which they had no chance of winning. It wasn't Ant and Dec's fault, but they thought it was the end.

'It was the worst time in our lives. If the trust's gone, that's it,' says Ant. 'We need to start saying no to stuff. People think we want to crack America, but we honestly don't have time right now.' Dec Last December when they appeared on Desert Island Discs they spoke about the fear their TV careers could have been over. Dec told presenter Kirsty Young, 'We couldn't comprehend how it was allowed to happen. If it had been the end I don't think we could have had many complaints.' The new series promises to be better than ever, with endless wind-ups, Ant vs Dec challenges, Little Ant & Dec and, as always, lots of celebrities being silly. After Takeaway, they're up to their eyes in BGT - they're already midway through the auditions. Then it's Take-away On Tour, and, towards the end of the year, I'm A Celebrity series 14. They make TV look spontaneous and easy, but they're famously hard-working, control every tiny detail and, according to Simon Cowell, are 'utter perfectionists'. 'Sometimes I think, "Bloody hell, after all these years, we're busier than ever",' says Dec.

'We need to start saying no to stuff. People think we want to crack America, but we honestly don't have time right now.' Behind the bounce and cheery chat, they're tired. Dec is clutching a vast bottle of vitamins and Ant looks shattered. 'I suffer really badly with insomnia. It takes me hours to get to sleep,' he says. 'I just lie there waiting, constantly thinking. I used to make lists, but it became addictive. I get into bed and I'm like, "Please brain, don't go all whirry now." I get jealous because Lisa [his make-up artist wife] falls asleep instantly, and kind of purrs away.' 'Purrs?!' says Dec. 'That's a very polite way of saying it. I can't exactly say in the Daily Mail she's a massive snorer, can I?' 'She purrs like a pneumatic drill, ha ha ha,' laughs Dec. Ant and Dec with one of their 25 NTA awards They both come from council estates in Newcastle and met as child actors on BBC children's TV series Byker Grove when they were 14.

Ant's mum brought up her son and his younger sister on her own, so while she held down two jobs, Ant (supposedly the shyer of the two) did most of the housework, cooked tea and is still 'brilliant at ironing and Sunday roasts'. Dec was the youngest of seven and an Irish dancing show-off. Their families still live in Newcastle. Ant's mum is a security guard in M&S. One of Dec's brothers is a priest, something Dec toyed with, briefly. 'I was at an all-boys Catholic school so I thought maybe I should think about it. But then I saw the girls from the convent and I thought, "No, that's not a route I'll be going down."' 'We love a drink or four. We egg each other on- if you're having another, I'm having another' Dec Their extraordinary friendship began on Boxing Day 1990, after Ant sent Dec a Flintstones Christmas card saying, 'Have a yabba dabba do Christmas' and asking him to the Newcastle vs Grimsby game. 'And that was that,' says Ant. 'It just happened immediately. We clicked.

We'd spend all day making each other laugh and annoying everyone and quoting Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer lines to each other.' 'Then we'd go home and phone each other up, go to the football together or stay over at each other's houses,' says Dec. 'And when we were 17, we were hanging out by the quayside in Newcastle in my MG Metro Turbo.' 'Don't forget the turbo, that's very important,' says Ant. '…with go faster stripes and red seatbelts. Anyway, our characters PJ and Duncan had just been written out of Byker Grove and we didn't know what to do next - the music hadn't taken off yet - so we made a pact. We said to each other, "Look, whatever happens, I'll always be there for you and you're never in this life on your own against the world - you've always got a mate looking out for you."' 'We love each other, definitely,' says Ant.

'A lot of people don't seem to be able to get their heads round it but just because we're on TV, it doesn't mean that our friendship should differ from two people who work in a call centre together and are best mates.' They spend an evening a week at each other's houses, handily just three doors apart in west London, and a night in the pub together every week. 'We're always thinking of new ideas when we're in the pub - you get so much more imaginative,' says Ant. 'Then you write it down and when you get up the next day you think, "Ooh, that's s***!" You need the whole audience to have had four pints, too,' says Dec. 'And we like a night out in a nice restaurant every week,' says Ant. 'And we play golf together on our days off - because of course we always have the same days off,' adds Dec. Blimey, doesn't it get a bit claustrophobic? 'No, because it's our choice to socialise outside work. And we both get to go to work with our best mate every day.

And that keeps our feet on the ground.' Ant and Dec became well known presenters after hosting SMTV Live with Cat Deeley (centre) But what about the ladies in their lives - doesn't it drive them potty? Ant and Lisa Armstrong - who works on Strictly and occasionally BGT - have been together for 18 years and married for nearly eight. Dec was best man. 'It just works. Lisa's always been around and we're all really good friends,' says Ant. He did, though, make Dec ask Lisa's permission before buying a house three doors from theirs. Are their houses 'in formation', too? 'Oh my God, they are!' says Ant. But doesn't Lisa ever just say, 'Look, I love Dec, but not tonight, please?' 'It's more likely to be him saying it to Lisa,' says Dec. 'We'll be in the car and my phone'll ring and it'll be Lisa - "Hi Dec, we're having pork chops for dinner, alright?"' She did put her foot down last year when Dec bought a miniature Dachshund called Rocky and Ant got a chocolate Labrador and wanted to call him Apollo Creed, Mr T or Drago.

'I went through all Rocky's opponents and she said, "No, no, no." So he's called Hurley, as in Liz. But not named after Liz, obviously.' Dec's girlfriend is Ali Astall, their manager. 'We've all known her for ages - so it's been a friendship we've all had. But it really started officially last year when we both decided to give it a go and it's been great. It's almost a year now,' says Dec. So could she be the future Mrs Donnelly? 'Who knows!' And would Ant be the best man? 'He'd have to wait to be asked.' More pressing right now are their plans to attend this summer's football World Cup in Brazil - they're mad fans. 'We're in the very early stages of negotiations at home,' says Dec. 'I tend to buy a handbag first,' says Ant. 'That's a good negotiating tool. It's directly proportional to the size and scale of the trip. So anything more than five days, you're looking at a Chanel.

That's what I'll open with - a big Chanel.' Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway returns tonight at 7pm on ITV Last year alone they were each paid more than £6 million, but for years they kept the trappings of wealth to a minimum. 'It's that working-class thing where you don't want to be flashy,' says Ant. 'It's ingrained in you not to go back home and show off. But I think we kind of got to an age where we thought, "Ye-es, but we should enjoy ourselves a little bit too."' So they've spent the last three years decking out their matching houses with gyms and big screens and boys' gadgets. 'Home automation, I think it's called,' says Dec. 'Everything at the push of a button. Or that's what I paid for, but the installation man still has to keep coming back and I've been there three years!' Ant's got his own cinema. 'But the surround sound's too much, so we have to watch Celebrity Big Brother upstairs in the kitchen otherwise it feels like you're actually in the Diary Room.' Last year they splurged on cars. 'I've got an Aston Martin,' says Ant.

'And I've got a Ferrari,' says Dec. 'It's the first time we've had really flashy cars. They roar.' 'Well mine doesn't,' says Ant. 'I can't get in it. The battery's run flat and I don't know what to do. It's so hi-tech I can't even open the door. I came back from Australia and thought, "Look at my car, isn't it brilliant?" And I can't get in it. I literally can't get in it! At least you can drive the Ferrari.' 'We should ask Prince Harry (to come on the show). He might just do it... And we'd really love Prince Charles to come on' Dec On and on they chat. About ageing ('We can't drink so much any more'), nerves before live shows ('Sweaty palms, hot feet, dry mouth'), Simon Cowell ('He thinks he's cool and he isn't, but he's such great fun') and the stench of the I'm A Celebrity contestants after a week or so in the jungle. 'They just stink - of fire and sweat and the smell of greasy hair and they come out and cuddle us...' says Dec.

'Then again, we probably stink of booze, ha ha!' adds Ant. Not forgetting their two big rows. One was years ago during their PJ & Duncan days, when they flew to Torremolinos to perform for GMTV, went straight out and got completely smashed, ate a full English breakfast at midnight, drank some more and then, for a reason neither of them can remember, Ant punched Dec in a lift and Dec knocked Ant's hat off in retaliation. 'It was hardly rumble in the jungle', says Ant. The second was more recently over the Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? board game when, after a row over a question about female crime writers and the 50:50 option, Dec 'went mental', folded up the board and stormed off home. Finally, we work our way back to Takeaway. 'We should ask Prince Harry. He might just do it... And we'd really love Prince Charles to come on - we've met him a few times, but we haven't mentioned it yet,' says Dec. 'But not for the "in me ear" bit,' says Ant. 'He'd be brilliant at it, but where would we stop?

It'd be too tempting and then we'll never get on that New Year's Honours list.' And with that, the boys ('we'll always be "the boys", even when we're 60') bounce off for more tea, chat, vitamins and our three-hour photo shoot where they paint each other gold. It's impossible not to like them, or want to share in their fun and laugh at their terrible jokes. Surely it's only a matter of time before Sir Ant and Sir Dec are doing very silly things with the heir to the throne on Saturday night TV. Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway, tonight, 7pm, ITV. Tickets for Ant & Dec's Takeaway live tour are available now at and For more info visit BBC NEWS | Entertainment | TV's Ant weds, with Dec best man TV's Ant weds, with Dec best man The pair met when Ant was performing as pop act PJ & Duncan Anthony McPartlin, of the popular TV presenting duo Ant and Dec, has married his girlfriend Lisa Armstrong at a ceremony in Buckinghamshire. Long-term professional partner Declan Donnelly was best man at the wedding in St Nicolas Church, Taplow, with the reception at Cliveden House hotel.

The duo have co-hosted a series of ITV1 shows including I'm A Celebrity..., Pop Idol and Saturday Night Takeaway. Make-up artist Lisa, 29, was a singer in pop band Deuce in the 1990s. She met Ant at a roadshow in Newcastle in the mid 1990s while she was in the band. He proposed in April last year. TV presenter Phillip Schofield and former weather girl Sally Meen were among the guests at the wedding. About 150 members of the public gathered outside the church, sheltering under trees and umbrellas from heavy rain. Ant and Dec, who appeared together as teenagers in BBC children's show Byker Grove and went on to have a brief pop career, have been named in a list of the UK's 50 greatest TV stars, for a programme due to be shown later this year. They had their first major film roles in a movie earlier this year in Alien Autopsy, to mixed reviews. When Ant met Dec - YouTube When Ant met Dec Want to watch this again later? Sign in to add this video to a playlist. Need to report the video? Sign in to report inappropriate content. Rating is available when the video has been rented.

This feature is not available right now. Please try again later. Uploaded on Apr 2, 2008 Ant's first scene in Byker Grove (1990) Category When autoplay is enabled, a suggested video will automatically play next. Up next Ant & Dec Hilarious Moments Compilation 1 - Duration: 20:54. Hayley V.W. 351,494 views 20:54 byker grove when ant (pj) got shot in the eyes with paintball gun by me haha part 1 - Duration: 4:56. rchy1 71,570 views 4:56

Question: Ant & Dec first appeared on TV together in which series?
Answer: Byker Grove